This week we started the Temple Grandin video. You all seemed to enjoy it a lot, as I knew you would! (Except I was about to throw my iPad across the room! Seriously. We will be able to watch a lot more this coming week. I found my DVD!)

If you missed the beginning of the video I will send you home for a night with my copy. Come see me and we will make a plan. I need you to be caught up for the second part of the movie on Wednesday.

Also, about Wednesday! The schedule is switched due to M-Step. So we will plan to have class during 1st hour which is during 4th period. Your 1st hour teachers have never had you taken out of their class, so hopefully this will not be an issue and will be a one-time thing. We will all take A lunch and we will eat together while watching the video.

**Please bring $2 for pizza. Anyone want to supply a few 2 liters for the class to enjoy? I will bring a special treat for dessert!

Back to Temple Grandin:

One of the coolest things about Temple Grandin is her ability to voice what it is like to have autism. So many people that I have worked with are never able to do that. For someone of her incredible intelligence to be able to tell us what is going on inside and how certain things make people feel is a huge step toward advocating and helping anyone with autism. This is one thing that has made her so well-known around the autism community. You all will see how this comes to be toward the end of the movie.

I want you to be able to see the real Temple Grandin and hear (read) her words. She is most certainly an interesting woman with an opinion about how things should be. Please read this article here. It was done right before her movie came out and I think it does a great job of introducing some of her main talking points. It also gives us a good glimpse into her head. Next week I will have you watch a video of her being interviewed. You will see how well Claire Danes portrays her in the movie.

Happy Monday! Things are all a bit off right now with the M-Step but we will charge forward! I am posting this on Monday due to our Friday meeting this week. Sorry for those of you who like to get your LINKS homework done over the weekend. I just did not have time to get this post up! Luckily, your homework is all quite easy this week.

In class on Friday we hit on the topic of autism and employment. Your job was to work with a partner to read and complete a summary of an article assigned. If you were not in class on Friday, I have shared the list of articles with you (Google Docs). Please choose one of the bottom four articles listed and complete the summary. I have the extra summary pages in my room. You will be reporting out on your article in class this coming Friday.

At the end of class Mrs. Hoekwater and I took a few minutes to describe what we have available after high school for students with disabilities here in Ottawa County. Most of our students will begin (post graduation) by going to a CBI program (Community Based Instruction).

At one of these locations (they can be places in Grand Haven, Holland, Hudsonville, Zeeland, etc.) they will take classes on life skills, vocational skills, independent living skills, personal care and functional academics that would help to prepare them for adulthood. So basically they get the experience of being at a high school and their "college" or post-high school time is spent on those important independent skills.

Each CBI location has different goals for the students based on their abilities, and also has many different job sites for them to practice working at. There is also the option for students to train and work at Kandu, which is a factory for people with disabilities.

The focus for all of this CBI training is for students to later go out and have a paid position somewhere. With their training and different work opportunities, hopefully a business will hire them. Often our students will get jobs at a grocery store, or as a dish washer, or maybe even a fast food restaurant.

I want to tell you about one other option that our students have. Recently local colleges such as Hope and Calvin have began programs for students to come to college. They have their own classes where they learn all of the important skills that the CBI programs teach, but they also are able to go into a few of the college classes- often a class of interest. Maybe a P.E. class? The students also have work placements on campus, such as the dining hall or cleaning classrooms.

One last piece to these college placements, at least out at Hope (unsure about Calvin) is that the students can even live on campus! Hope has a dorm called the Friendship House where students with disabilities and college or seminary students live side-by-side together. It is almost like a LINKS class for college students! (Which, by the way, GVSU has! It is for higher functioning ASD students- but you can be a LINK in college!)

The only bummer about these college programs for our students is that their parents have to pay for them. The CBI programs are free until our students are 26. The college programs cost a lot of money. But if parents truly want their child to have that experience- it's there for them!

Beyond the information that you are going to share in our class on Friday, these are a few of the local programs that we have for our boys. It will be interesting to see where they each end up in the years to come!

Enjoy the following video and good luck on your last few M-Step tests this week!

You all did SUCH an amazing job this week! I am so so proud of you! Thank you for all of your hard work, independence, passion, and incredible ideas. Even though I missed the first two days of the week, I still believe this was probably my most favorite AAW yet! SO proud of you!!!

Also, thank you all for your help with the boys during the Spring Olympics. They were amazing and the boys loved them! I definitely had tears in my eyes when one boy got an award. I am so glad I thought to video it!

On to real class stuff...

This week we began our discussion on the R-Word. I loved your thoughts on the subject. This blog post will still touch on the r-word but will mostly hit on bullying. This is so important for you to remember and understand as you all are the best people to help fight this off. Without you being educated on this, you cannot fully help. You all are on the front lines. You all can make bad things right here in school. I believe in you and your friendships with the boys.

Here is some information about the bullying and harassment of students with autism and disabilities. I think those of us working with kids with autism have a different type of challenge before us. One thing you have learned about people with autism is that social and communication cues are very difficult. Therefore, when you think about someone mocking or teasing a person with autism, a lot of times it goes right over that person's head. This can be a good thing because often they do not realize, but that can also make it a harder thing to combat.

I remember sitting at a lunch table a few years ago and watching a large group of popular boys tease and mock a student with very high functioning autism. Of course I stood up for the boy, but it was very difficult for me to get through to that boy that the other boys were making fun of him. All he knew is that they were popular, they were talking to him and they were laughing (which in his mind meant he was funny). This is why it is so important (in my eyes) for people to know and understand this about autism and to be willing to stick up for their peers. This is one reason why LINKS is SO important in this school.

This is taken from AutismSpeaks.org on the subject of bullying and harassment:

"Children with special needs face unique challenges for dealing with bullying. They often stand out from their peers in ways that make them targets for bullying, and children who have difficulty with social interactions have an even higher risk of being bullied.

Bullying certainly isn't a new problem; it has existed for generations. Historically, many have seen it as a rite of passage, a type of de facto hazing. According to Dr. Peter Raffalli, a pediatric neurologist at the Children's Hospital in Boston, Mass., this attitude is, in many cases, more dangerous than the bullies themselves. "No matter how you look at it, bullying is a form of abuse victimization, plain and simple," said Dr. Raffailli. "It's a case of the strong - or at least the stronger - preying on the weak. It says volumes about where we are as a culture and race."

Bullying has negative effects on all its victims, but kids with special needs are especially vulnerable, according to Nancy A. Murphy, M.D., FAAP and chair of the AAP Council on Children with Disabilities Executive Committee. "Since these children already struggle with self-esteem issues," said Dr. Murphy, "bullying has a greater impact and they desire to fit in, and are less likely to stand up for themselves.""

The following article is also a great informational piece about why bullying is so harmful to students with disabilities and how to best combat it.

Finally, I want to share with you once again the blog piece that I read to you the other day. I want you to read it yourselves one last time and think about how you can best approach people who use the word.

I think she shares such a powerful message here. I felt empowered after reading this post for the first time, because I truly understood why it was such a terrible word to use.

Confession time: I used to use that word all.the.freaking.time. Finally, when I started taking my college classes for my special education degree, I "got it" and thought, "Enough is enough. I need to stop." With the help of some friends, I was able to finally get myself to stop using that word.

After reading that blog post for the first time, I remember thinking "thank goodness I no longer use that word!". I felt as though I would be a total disappointment of a special education teacher if I still did. Then, as stated before, I felt empowered. As I mentioned in class, I had co-workers who still used that word regularly, and totally out of context! I wanted it to stop!

I found that the best way for me to approach the subject was in a one-on-one or small group situation, explaining how much it bothered me when they used that word. Then, you know what I did? I sent them the link to that blog post! How much more powerful that message is from the mother of a girl with disabilities than from me!

And, you know what? Those people stopped using that word in front of me. Notice how I say "in front of me". I have NO idea if they still use that word in other areas of their life, and it isn't my job to police that. But, they do not use it in front of me, and I appreciate that. I just hope that I helped to make enough of a difference in their life that they see that word in a totally different way.

Want more information or to sign the pledge to stop using the r-word? Go to www.r-word.org to help "spread the word to end the word". It's a great website with tons of information and videos on the topic!

Finally, I have included one of my most favorite videos!

I hope you all have a WONDERFUL Spring Break! Looking forward to seeing you all on Monday. Also, due to M-Step beginning when you get back, we will be meeting on FRIDAY during 6th hour. I will get a note out to you Monday or Tuesday!